Mixed Feelings
by Insane And Out Of Your Mind
Summary: Jaxis, set during the Mixed Marrieds storyline. As Chloe, Jax, Alexis, and Ned plot to save Chloe's company, they find that their scheme takes on a life of its own, until even they don't know who they belong with anymore.
1. Chapter 1

**Mixed Feelings**

Author: Cate

Summary: Jaxis, set during the "Mixed Marrieds" storyline. Some fudging of the timeline with regards to Kristina's birth, and some demonizing of Ned. Have I mentioned yet that there's Jaxis?

Rating: PG, but subject to change.

Disclaimer: I'm in no way affiliated with ABCD or the turds who write this show for a living, nor am I making any money off of this, so please don't sue the Cate.

Author's Note: See that sexy purple button down there? It's lonely. It wants you to click on it and leave me a review. Don't disappoint the sexy purple button.

* * *

"So what time are we meeting tonight?" 

"Eight or so, if that's all right with you and Chloe. Jax has some business thing he needs to take care of, and he doesn't think he'll be out until then."

"Yeah, sure, that should be fine."

"Good."

Ned emerged from the bathroom, impatiently fingering the buttons on his clean, white shirt. Alexis, already dressed in a simple blue top and a skirt just high enough to be called short, grinned as she watched him for a moment before moving deftly to the rescue, fastening his remaining buttons and even tying his tie for him. He kissed her lightly by way of a 'thank you,' and just as she was tempted to undo what she had just done, there was a knock at the door that connected their hotel suite to the one Jax and Chloe were in.

"Well, isn't this a shock," said Jax devilishly when Alexis opened the door. He smiled at her, then as he looked to Ned his grin became mischeivous. "You actually got her up before lunch."

"Jax," Chloe chided, as the subject of his ridicule let out a laugh.

"Oh, well if you don't need me up until noon, that means I have four and a half hours left. Perhaps I should go back to bed..." Alexis proposed, her brown eyes twinkling.

"No!" came a chorus of three voices.

Alexis shrugged. "It was only a suggestion."

Chloe stuck up for her best friend. "Hey, it was Alexis' suggestion that we take this little trip in the first place, so maybe we should listen to her more often... But that doesn't mean that I'm forsaking my last morning at a spa just to sleep all day, sorry, honey."

"That's all right," Alexis intoned with an exaggerated sigh and a roll of her eyes.

"Before we do anything else, are we all finished packing?" Ned asked. Everyone nodded in assent, so he continued with, "Okay, well we need to check out by eleven, so that gives us four hours. What can we do at a spa in the next four hours?" he asked Alexis.

"If you say anything beginning with the word 'mud,' I'm divorcing you," Jax joked.

"Aw, well, there goes my plans for our morning," she teased him back. "How about a nice sauna, instead? Chloe and I can gossip, you and Ned can... sit there and glare at each other, or something..."

Jax opened his mouth to reply, but Chloe beat him to the punch. "Why don't we each get a personal massage, and then meet for brunch before we leave?"

"That sounds like a good idea," Ned responded quickly. Jax and Alexis agreed, and the four friends filed out of the room.

-x-

The morning passed quickly, and soon it was time to check out. The couples enjoyed a relaxed brunch together before going their seperate ways - Ned and Chloe in a limo straight back to Port Charles; Jax and Alexis on a plane to Manhattan.

"Hey, are you okay?" Jax asked just after takeoff, when he saw his wife was half asleep on the couch.

Alexis nodded. "I'm fine, just tired."

Jax sat down next to her, stroking her chestnuthair while she used his khaki-cladleg as a pillow. "I've got a couple of meetings and I don't know how long they'll run, so if you want to I can tell the pilot to just take you home and then come back for me."

"That's okay," she said, shaking her head. "I had planned on dropping in on some of my friends from my old law firm. Just call me when you're finished and we'll meet somewhere."

"All right," he said, "If you're up to it."

She nodded, then closed her eyes, unable to force them open any longer. He watched her, his own blue eyes filled with worry, for the remainder of their short flight, but as soon as they were landed she picked up her head, straightened her clothes, and appeared to be just fine. "So," she said as they exited the plane, "Call me when you get done?"

"Will do, wife," he replied, kissing her on the cheek before they departed in seperate limos. She gave him a quick smile as she closed her door, and his gaze lingured on her car's fading tail lights for a moment before he climbed into his own vehicle and set off.


	2. Chapter 2

"Just let me out here, please," Alexis instructed her chauffer, about two blocks from her former office. "It's a nice night, I'd like to walk the rest of the way."

It wasn't a _total_ lie. The weather was really quite warm, unusual for this time of year in New York. Alexis' desire to escape the limo, however, had little to do with the outside temperature, and was instead wholly relevant to the pharmacy perched at the next corner. She walked briskly up to it and pushed open the door, blinking as she stepped inside and her eyes were flooded with harsh flourescent light. Her sight adjusted quickly, and she began browsing the aisles, suddenly nervous.

Her heart raced when she found what she was looking for: pregnancy tests, aisle three. Blindly, she grabbed one, and headed over to the check out. On the way she had to keep reminding herself that she was a grown woman, legally married (though not to the prospective father, but nobody else needed to know that just yet), and had no need to disguise her purchase with cough drops or chocolate bars or any of the other miscelleneous items she was tempted to pick up. Alexis held her breath when she got up to the till, but the cashier barely glanced at her, and the transaction was completed in silence. Feeling a bit like a criminal who'd just gotten away with something very bad indeed, she stuffed the paper bag into her purse before exiting the pharmacy, and, for lack of anything better to do, continued on to see the old friends she had told Jax that she was visiting.

* * *

Alexis slept through the short plane ride back to Port Charles, and Jax looked on, concerned. When they landed, she opened her eyes and groggily walked with him to the limosine awaiting them.

"So, how did your meeting go?" she asked him as they stretched out in the back seat.

"Fine," he replied, distracted. After a beat, he asked, "Is everything all right with you? I mean, no offense, my darling wife, but you look like hell."

Alexis managed a weak smile. "Thanks," she said, "I'm fine, just tired. You did have Ned drag me out of bed at practically the crack of dawn, you know."

"The crack of - oh, hardly!" Jax exclaimed with a chuckle. Alexis laughed with him, her brown eyes emitting but a fraction of their usual twinkle, and the matter was dropped, until they returned to the penthouse. No sooner had they walked through the door than Alexis collapsed on the couch, one hand massaging her forehead, the other balancing her chin on her knees.

"You know," she said, "Actually, I'm really not feeling well. Would you mind handling Ned and Chloe by yourself for tonight?"

"Are you sure?" he asked, sitting down beside her. "I mean, I could just call and cancel, if you'd rather have someone here with you. I'll even make you popcorn for a change."

"I don't need to be babysat, but thanks for offering," she replied. "Really, all I need is some rest and I'll be fine. You go have a good time, and make sure you tell everyone just how much you miss me while you're out."

"Okay," he agreed reluctantly, "But I still have an hour before I need to be there, anyway, so at least let me take care of you until then. Come on now, up to bed."

She was about to protest, when she stood up, and immediately had to grab onto him for support. He steadied her until she felt that the room had stopped spinning, and helped her upstairs to the master bedroom.

"Now, if you want me to come home, you just call, okay? And if you want Ned, call me and I'll find a way to get him here without alerting Gertrude. In the meantime, just get some rest," Jax ordered an hour later, just before he left to meet Chloe and Ned.

Alexis sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Yes, Dad."

Jax flashed her a smile and then left, closing the bedroom door behind him. Alexis lay on the bed, still fully dressed, and waited until she was sure he had gone before slowly rising to her feet.

She crept downstairs to retrieve her purse, and from it pulled the paper bag she'd gotten at the pharmacy earlier that night; the one containing the pregnancy test. She knew that, for best results, she should wait until the morning, but she didn't want to leave the bag downstairs until then, for fear of Jax finding it. Not that it would matter much; if the result was positive, then it was only a matter of time before the man she was living with figured out what was going on, but she hadn't even told Ned yet. She wanted him to be the first to know, regardless of how the test turned out.

She sprinted upstairs with the bag, and placed it on the vanity in the master bathroom. Despite the early hour, she then changed out of her clothes and in to a silk nightgown. Forgoing various other nighttime rituals, Alexis climbed back into bed and went to right to sleep staring at the silhouette of the paper bag, and waiting for the morning to dawn and tell her future with its contents.


	3. Chapter 3

Jax had tried to enjoy himself, but his thoughts kept wandering away from his friends at the table with him and settling on two different, troublesome subjects. The first, Jerry, had been preoccupying him a lot lately, as he scrambled to keep his brother out of prison. The meeting he'd had in New York earlier that night had gone well, but not as well as he would have liked. Alexis assured him that they would get Jerry out of this, but... well, Alexis herself was Jax's other cause for concern. She hadn't been herself for the past week or so, and he worried that their arrangement was getting to her. Normally she was so full of energy; now, she was the only person he'd ever known who could come home exhausted from a spa. As much as she insisted on staying married to him, Jax wondered if the seperation from Ashton and the stress of their pretense were beginning to impact her health.

With these thoughts in mind, he had excused himself early from dinner with Ned and Chloe, and rushed home to check on his wife. He crept in to the master bedroom and found her exactly as he had left her, asleep in his bed, her expression peaceful. With a mischievous smile, he pulled out a small box from his jacket pocket; it contained her favorite perfume, which he'd picked up in the city as a thank-you for everything she'd done for Jerry. He decided to leave it for her in the medicine cabinet, among the various other beauty products she deemed necessary to life, despite his firm yet undisclosed belief that she had no need of them.

Not wanting to wake her, he left the bathroom light off. His only source of illumination came from a small streak of moonlight that had managed to make its way in through the bedroom window, and in the near-darkness he accidentally knocked a paper bag off of the sink, its contents spilling out onto the floor. Quietly, he bent down to scoop up the small box, and was just about to stuff it carelessly back into the bag when the word "pregnancy" caught his eye, in small blue lettering that shone in the dull moonlight. He moved the box to the left a bit to better catch the light, and the word "test" came into view.

His head spinning, he quickly replaced the item in its bag and set it back on the sink. Well, this _would_ explain a lot. Jax wondered idylly if Alexis had told Ned yet, but then realized that he was getting ahead of himself. The box had been unopened; Alexis herself didn't yet know if there was anything _to _tell. Still, the thought of getting to be Uncle Jax put a wide grin on his face as he carefully put the perfume away. His mission accomplished, he snuck out of the master bedroom and down the hall to his own temporary quarters, while his wife slept serenely on.

* * *

Alexis awoke early the next morning and marched straight into the bathroom, determined to get an answer right away lest she chicken out and procrastinate. While she waited for the results to appear, she paced the bedroom frantically, wondering how three minutes could possibly take so long. When they finally were over, however, she almost wished that they'd been a little longer. Inhaling slowly, she made her way back to the bathroom. With another deep breath, she forced herself to look at the results. There were two blue lines.

Pregnant. She was pregnant. She, Alexis Davis, born Natasha - a Cassadine, of all things - was going to have a baby. This had officially surpassed the myriad horrors of her childhood to become the single most frightening moment of her life.

There was joy, as well, mixed in with the trepidation. Joy, shock, awe... Shock was the one emotion that held her the most, so she sat down on the bed, trying to clear her mind and let it all sink in. Unfortunately, she was quickly interrupted by her cell phone ringing on the nightstand.

"Alexis Davis," she answered automatically.

"Hey," came Ned's voice on the other end. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

Alexis smiled. "No," she replied, "I was already up."

"Really?" He sounded surprised. "Now I know something's wrong. Jax told us you weren't feeling well last night. We missed you." He was silent for a moment, and then amended his statement to, "I missed you."

"I'm feeling much better now," she assured him, "And I missed you, too. In fact, I want to make it up to you. I'd like us to have some time alone - are you free at all today?"

"Well," he began slowly, "I do have an early dinner meeting to discuss some ELQ business... How about this afternoon, say around four? Come to the gatehouse; Chloe'll be gone most of the day, so it'll just be us."

"I'll be there," she promised, and hung up, feeling all the more nervous for their impending date, and the announcement she'd have to spring on him at some point during it...

* * *

A/N: Sorry I've taken so long, but my schedule's gotten a bit crazy lately. Review this and check out my other fics, and maybe I'll update them faster. .


End file.
